President Obama will be viewed favorably by history. His approval ratings at the moment (55%) are relatively sky high for a POTUS leaving office. This puts Barry O in rare air for a departing POTUS, right up there with Slick Willie and Ronald Reagan as some of the highest rated departing Presidents in the modern era. By no means do I agree with everything he has done (broadly speaking, his foreign policy, to me, has been meh at best). Nonetheless, I certainly approve of the job he has done and will always speak highly of his legacy. As an expat living in Belgium, I can also attest to how favorably foreigners view President Obama. Polling indicates that foreigners have viewed the United States incredibly positively (notwithstanding the MENA region, of course) under Obama, specifically when juxtaposed with how negatively foreigners viewed the previous administration.

This post isn’t about policy specifics, however. This is about what President Obama has meant to me, and all of us. First and foremost, as a young adult coming to age during the Obama years, there was always one characteristic trait of his that I tried to emulate. That one trait is the thoughtfulness that Obama oozes. Watch a clip of Obama taking questions and providing answers. He listens carefully to the question, deeply ponders his response before offering his take, and then expertly articulates his position, always substantiating it with fact-based evidentiary reasoning. He quite literally thinks about every single word he says. My father always tells me that too many folks are either talking or waiting to talk, and thus bloviate endlessly without substance. Obama is the antithesis to this, and is an all-time great orator because of it. There are countless things about Obama that everyone should strive to emulate (his grace, level-headedness, and uncanny ability to never get flustered, just to name a few), but to me, his pensiveness is by far his best trait, and one that I seek to emulate every single day.